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"The Refusal" (German: "Die Abweisung"),[1] also known as "Unser Städtchen liegt …", is a short story by Franz Kafka. Written in the autumn of 1920,[2] it was not published in Kafka's lifetime.

Overview

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The story of "Die Abweisung" involves the narration of a young boy living in a small town that is fairly distanced from its capital. The boy reflects on how the town's inhabitants humbly submit to orders issued by the capital and are led by the tax-collector, a man with the rank of colonel. The boy goes into great detail describing the soldiers that uphold the tax-collectors law, and how they appear inhuman to the public and seem unable to speak their language. In times of crisis, the town always appeals to the colonel for government aid, and if it is anything serious, it is always refused. The final paragraph describes the narrator's observation that it is due to this situation that '...young people roughly between seventeen and twenty,' begin to feel discontent and find revolutionary ideas because they are incapable of foreseeing the consequences."

References

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Further reading

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The Refusal

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"The Refusal" (German: Die Abweisung) is a short story by , composed in the autumn of and published posthumously in German in 1936 as part of a collection of his works. Set in an unnamed small town overshadowed by a distant and opaque capital, the narrative centers on the inhabitants' ritualized petitions to local officials—who represent the central authority—for promotions, honors, or other advancements, only to receive formulaic refusals that paradoxically sustain the social order and enable everyday life to continue. The story exemplifies Kafka's recurring motifs of bureaucratic absurdity, the alienation of individuals within hierarchical systems, and the quiet resignation to power structures that defy rational comprehension. First translated into English in 1958, "The Refusal" has been anthologized in collections such as Parables and Paradoxes and remains a staple in studies of Kafka's prose for its concise portrayal of existential inertia and the psychological mechanisms of submission. Unlike Kafka's longer works like The Trial or The Castle, which elaborate on similar themes through extended narratives, this parable-like piece distills the essence of institutional rejection into a few pages, highlighting how the act of refusal becomes an indispensable fixture of communal existence, without which progress or disruption would unsettle the status quo. Kafka's unburned manuscripts, preserved against his wishes by his friend Max Brod, ensured the story's survival and contribution to his posthumous legacy as a prophet of modern disenchantment with authority.

Background and Context

Biographical Influences

Kafka composed "The Refusal" in 1920, amid a sharp decline in his health that intensified his longstanding , first diagnosed in 1917 after symptoms emerged during . By early 1920, he experienced a severe lung hemorrhage, leading to extended and treatment at sanatoriums, including one in the High from December 1920; this progression fostered profound isolation and a perception of inevitable decay, causally informing the story's undercurrents of futile resistance against unyielding structures. His professional life as a and claims administrator at Prague's Workers' Institute, spanning 1908 to 1922, immersed him in the minutiae of regulatory processes, accident compensation disputes, and hierarchical decision-making, yielding direct observation of impersonal officialdom that parallels the narrative's depiction of detached, capricious authorities. These experiences underscored the alienation of individuals within vast administrative apparatuses, a recurring causal input from his empirical encounters with institutional rigidity. Familial tensions, particularly Kafka's fraught dynamic with his authoritarian father Hermann—a self-made who exerted psychological dominance—manifested in the 1919 "," where Kafka articulated feelings of diminishment and coerced compliance; this paternal microcosm of overwhelming, remote power causally shaped motifs of subservience to higher, inscrutable figures. Concurrently, Kafka's voluntary retreat from Prague's social milieu, driven by health frailties and chronic self-doubt, positioned him on the periphery of communal life, akin to the story's town's enforced marginality and self-distancing from central power.

Kafka's Broader Oeuvre

"The Refusal" exemplifies Kafka's recurrent exploration of bureaucratic opacity and arbitrary authority, motifs central to his longer novels The Trial (1925) and The Castle (1926). In The Trial, protagonist Josef K. navigates an elusive court apparatus that accuses without specification, culminating in execution by undefined decree; similarly, The Castle's land surveyor K. pursues futile entry into a remote administrative hierarchy. "The Refusal," as a compact narrative, distills these elements into a provincial setting where the colonel's denial of advancement petitions enforces stasis, rendering potential progress illusory amid distant imperial oversight. Unlike the third-person detachment in Kafka's novels, which amplifies systemic impersonality, "The Refusal" adopts a first-person narration that foregrounds the speaker's localized, anecdotal of entrenched , heightening the through personal rather than epic quest. This stylistic choice aligns with Kafka's shorter prose, where subjective immediacy underscores objective irrationality, as seen in tales like "" (1917), yet contrasts the allegorical breadth of his unfinished romances. The refusal motif recurs empirically across Kafka's corpus, most starkly in the "" (1914), embedded in , where a petitioner is eternally barred from legal sanctum by gatekeepers, symbolizing perpetual deferral of justice. In "The Refusal," this denial evolves into a communal stabilizer: the town's acquiescence to the colonel's veto averts upheaval, critiquing passive submission as a perverse equilibrium distinct from the protagonists' defiant inquiries in longer works. Such patterns evince Kafka's textual consistency in portraying authority as an unassailable barrier, where refusal sustains rather than disrupts the hierarchical order.

Publication History

Composition and Posthumous Publication

composed "The Refusal" (Die Abweisung) in the autumn of 1920 during a therapeutic stay in (now Merano), , where he sought relief from symptoms; the piece originated as an unfinished fragment among his notebooks of aphoristic and narrative sketches. drafted it amid a period of sporadic writing, leaving it unpublished during his lifetime alongside many similar works. On his deathbed on June 3, 1924, Kafka explicitly directed his close friend and literary executor, , to destroy all unpublished manuscripts, including notebooks containing fragments like "The Refusal," viewing them as imperfect and unworthy of preservation. , deeming the works of enduring value, defied this instruction, meticulously editing and arranging the materials from Kafka's notebooks and loose sheets for posthumous release. This decision preserved original manuscript elements, such as the story's abrupt ending and notebook context, enabling later scholarly examination of Kafka's compositional process. "The Refusal" first appeared in print in the German collection Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer (At the Sites of the ), edited by Brod and published by Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag in on October 1, 1931; the volume assembled eight posthumous stories and reflections drawn from Kafka's later notebooks. Brod's editorial choices grouped "The Refusal" with pieces emphasizing themes of distant , reflecting the notebooks' sequential origins without significant alteration to the text. English translations of the story emerged later, with Willa and Muir's version included in their 1948 anthology The : Stories and Reflections, broadening access beyond German-speaking audiences after disruptions.

Translations and Accessibility

The original German title Die Abweisung has been translated into English variably as "The Refusal," "The Rejection," or "The Rebuff" across editions, reflecting interpretive choices in capturing the story's theme of bureaucratic denial. Early English renderings, such as those by Willa and in the 1930s and 1940s, prioritized literary elegance in introducing Kafka's oeuvre to Anglophone audiences, though subsequent revisions in collections like the 1971 Schocken Books edition of The Complete Stories—edited by Nahum N. Glatzer—sought greater fidelity to the German original's syntactic precision and understated irony. Translators encounter persistent challenges in replicating Kafka's bureaucratic , which employs terse administrative phrasing to evoke institutional opacity, alongside an ironic tone that underscores resigned compliance without overt . Some versions adapt these elements for idiomatic flow, potentially attenuating the motif of quiet refusal by smoothing ambiguities inherent in the source text's conditional structures and passive constructions. Inclusion in comprehensive anthologies, notably The Complete Stories (Schocken Books, 1971), enhanced global accessibility by aggregating Die Abweisung with Kafka's other posthumous works, facilitating its integration into curricula and libraries despite the author's limited circulation during his lifetime (only a fraction of his output published before ). This dissemination extended readership beyond German-speaking regions, with the story appearing in subsequent bilingual and multilingual editions that preserve its concise form for scholarly analysis.

Synopsis

Narrative Overview

The story is set in an unnamed town situated far from any and even farther from the imperial capital, emphasizing its isolation amid desolate highlands and fertile plains. The unfolds through the first-person account of an unnamed narrator, who describes the town's under a serving as the supreme local authority, directly accountable only to the distant capital. Annually, town delegations prepare formal petitions—such as requests for exemptions, timber allocations, or subsidies following disasters like fires that ravage poorer districts—and present them during ceremonial visits by officials. These occasions involve meticulous preparations, including cleaning streets and assembling crowds, culminating in the colonel's appearance on his . The refusal process is ritualistic: the grips two staves symbolizing the , standing rigidly as a designated speaker reads the aloud, often invoking the capital's remoteness and the futility of . He maintains this posture, breathing deeply to endure , until exhaustion forces him to release the staves and sit, signaling the petition's denial, which an official then proclaims to the assembled crowd. The narrator recounts a personal incident from his youth, when, accompanying his father as an apprentice after a destroyed the town's poorest quarter on , he witnessed such a ; despite high hopes, the request was refused, yet the crowd dispersed with a of and normalization. Minor petitions may occasionally receive secret approvals outside this formality, but the grand refusals persist as a of local order. The narrative reflects on the paradoxical necessity of these refusals for societal stability, noting that without them, the town's from the capital's direct interference would erode, leading to potential chaos. The first-person voice conveys the events' through detached observation, highlighting the crowd's despite of the capital's inaccessibility—petitions sent there vanish into bureaucratic voids. The story concludes without resolution, underscoring the cyclical nature of the annual rituals, though the narrator observes emerging discontent among the aged 17 to 20, who question the colonel's amid growing of broader possibilities beyond the town's confines.

Themes and Motifs

Bureaucratic Power and Refusal

In Kafka's "The Refusal," local officials act as intermediaries for the remote imperial center, dispensing limited favors such as promotions and auxiliary administrative decisions while delivering categorical refusals on substantive requests, a dynamic that mechanically preserves the empire's hierarchical dominance by channeling aspirations into manageable, non-disruptive outlets. This selective benevolence ensures the system's perpetuation, as minor grants placate immediate needs without conceding structural power, reflecting a causal logic where withholds transformative change to maintain control over peripheral subjects. The refusals themselves form a ritualized procedure rather than random acts, with townspeople conducting elaborate preparations and approaching officials "full of expectation and in all ," only to internalize the as an expected outcome that sustains and personal dependency. Empirical details from the narrative underscore this: encounters occur periodically, demands are formally presented, and the rejection—far from eroding faith—reinforces the necessity of repeated , as "without this refusal one simply cannot get along." Such patterns foster a conditioned reliance, where the anticipation of denial becomes a stabilizing force, empirically observable in the community's unyielding adherence despite consistent rebuffs. Central to this motif is the capital's effective inaccessibility, with the town's extreme remoteness—requiring traversal of desolate highlands and vast plains—rendering direct petitions to the causally impractical and self-defeating, as one attempting the journey "would probably be turned back at the or even before it." This geographical barrier highlights the inherent inefficiencies of over-centralized authority, where distance amplifies procedural opacity and diffuses accountability, making higher redress a theoretical rather than operational possibility. Unlike interpretations that might frame such structures as benign enforcers of communal , the story causally unmasks the absurdity of enforced loyalty to an opaque state apparatus, portraying refusals as mechanisms that compel submission without reciprocal legitimacy, thereby critiquing blind fidelity to centralized power rather than valorizing collective deference. This exposure of ritualized denial's role in perpetuating inefficiency challenges views presuming bureaucratic rituals inherently advance egalitarian ends, revealing instead their function in insulating from empirical contestation.

Resignation and Social Compliance

In Kafka's "The Refusal," the townspeople exhibit a pattern of ritualistic preparation for encounters with Castle officials, including thorough street cleanings and the compilation of detailed petitions, fully aware that these efforts will culminate in inevitable . This underscores compliance as an ingrained survival strategy, wherein the community invests in formalities to affirm the existing rather than disrupt it, thereby preserving daily routines amid the certainty of rejection. The narrator describes these occasions as structured events "designed to receive the refusal," highlighting how such adaptations foster communal stability by channeling aspirations into predictable, non-threatening channels. The narrator conveys toward the system, positing that the refusal mechanism is essential for upholding order and preventing , as its absence would erode the foundational upon which social cohesion depends. This perspective critiques oppositional impulses, particularly among the youth, whose protests against the colonel's dismissals are dismissed as naive and ineffective, lacking the leverage to alter entrenched dynamics. Empirical depiction in the text reveals passivity not as defeat but as pragmatic equilibrium, where repeated denials reinforce an illusory framework that sustains the town's functional existence without necessitating confrontation. Refusal thus functions within the as a stabilizing , embedding social compliance into the fabric of communal life and countering ideals of transformative resistance with observations of habitual . The townsfolk's post-refusal dispersal, marked by relief rather than outrage, illustrates this acceptance, prioritizing continuity over upheaval and reflecting a realism grounded in the futility of challenging opaque structures. Scholarly interpretations aligning with the text emphasize this dynamic over narratives of heroic , noting how such compliance mirrors real-world adaptations to unyielding bureaucracies.

Distance from Authority Centers

In Kafka's "The Refusal," the unnamed town's geographical placement underscores a motif of remoteness that transcends mere physical miles, positioning it as "so far from the frontier... that perhaps no news can get through from there to any of us any more." This setup symbolizes perceptual barriers erected by centralized authority, where the capital remains an abstract, unassailable entity despite the town's non-frontier status; reports of distant frontier conflicts reach inhabitants sporadically, yet intelligence from the capital—save for official channels—is virtually nonexistent, fostering a causal disempowerment through informational asymmetry. The annual arrival of the construction supervisor from the capital serves as the sole tangible linkage, a ritualistic event that reinforces isolation by limiting interaction to scripted refusals rather than substantive engagement. This spatial dynamic mirrors personal withdrawal in the anecdote of the former hunter, who abandons his pursuit after glimpsing the capital's emissaries, illustrating how societal estrangement from centers prompts into . The road to the capital, depicted as an "unimaginably long" expanse traversable only by officials in guarded conveyances, functions as a first-principles impediment: its sheer length and inaccessibility preclude ordinary challenges to edicts, enabling unaccountable power by rendering logistically improbable. Such remoteness causally sustains bureaucratic , as the absence of proximate —contrasting idealized centralized systems—breeds alienation, where subjects internalize distance as an insurmountable divide between their lived reality and distant directives. Interpretations aligned with individualist critiques highlight this as evidence that overreliance on remote erodes local agency, prioritizing causal realism over utopian assumptions of efficient central oversight.

Analysis and Interpretations

Existential and Individualist Readings

In existential interpretations, the central refusal in Kafka's story symbolizes the arbitrary denial inherent in human existence, where opaque imposes limits on fulfillment without discernible purpose or appeal, evoking the of confronting an indifferent order. This resonates with Albert Camus's concept of the absurd as the tension between humanity's demand for clarity and the world's mute irrationality, though Kafka grounds such futility in pre-1924 observations of Austro-Hungarian administrative rigidity rather than philosophical revolt. The townspeople's passive endurance underscores a failure to assert meaning amid this void, fostering existential particularly among the young, who sense the disconnect between aspiration and systemic . Individualist readings emphasize the narrator's introspective critique of voluntary submission to , portraying the collective craving for authoritative as a self-inflicted erosion of personal . Rather than coerced compliance, inhabitants consent to denials out of a psychological need for punitive structure, which insulates from challenge and prioritizes masochistic relief over . The narrator's eventual pursuit as a hunter represents a singular act of agency, withdrawing into solitary terrain to evade town and assert over one's trajectory, even if this evasion proves causally impotent against entrenched by distant powers. Such views counterbalance pessimistic framings by highlighting the pragmatic utility of detached or idiosyncratic withdrawal, avoiding overreliance on victimhood narratives that overlook textual of elective paths amid constraints. While agency remains bounded by the "nothingness" behind bureaucratic facades, the story privileges empirical recognition of these limits over illusory defiance, underscoring realism as a viable, if solitary, response to inertial systems.

Political Critiques of Centralized Control

Critics have interpreted Kafka's depiction of the empire in "The Refusal" as a symbolic indictment of absolutist centralized states, where bureaucratic intermediaries like the enforce remote directives that routinely fail to materialize, thereby highlighting the inherent inefficiencies of divorced from local contexts. The story's central motif of systematic refusals—such as the denial of a project despite imperial promises—exposes how top-down commands, lacking granular knowledge of peripheral needs, devolve into performative rituals rather than effective policy, a causal dynamic favoring decentralized decision-making for adaptive outcomes. This reading draws empirical parallels to the , Kafka's lifelong milieu, whose sprawling multi-ethnic administration engendered layers of redundant oversight and sluggish responsiveness; for instance, pre-World War I military mobilizations were hampered by inter-ministerial delays, contributing to strategic disadvantages against more agile opponents. Such critiques extend to hierarchical systems promising egalitarian advancement, akin to socialist bureaucracies, where the townsfolk's resigned acceptance of unfulfilled imperial pledges mirrors the gap between state and delivery, debunking illusions of centrally orchestrated equity. In the , the empire's vague assurances of normalize as a stabilizing norm, yet this compliance perpetuates stagnation, as evidenced by the town's self-reliant prosperity despite withheld resources—a pattern observable in historical empires where local initiatives compensated for central paralysis. Libertarian socialist analyses, including those by , frame the collective refusal to revolt as an understated anarchist praxis against coercive authority, emphasizing voluntary non-submission over violent upheaval to erode hierarchical control. Countervailing views from authority-apologist perspectives, often aligned with statist leftism, portray the captain's role and communal acquiescence as essential for maintaining order amid imperial vastness, arguing that outright defiance would invite chaos. However, this stance overlooks causal evidence from the Habsburg : enforced uniformity across diverse provinces stifled and fueled nationalist fractures, culminating in the empire's disintegration after the of November 11, 1918, which liberated regions to pursue localized with mixed but un-stultified results. Kafka's 1920 composition, amid these fresh upheavals, thus underscores not stability through submission, but the long-term costs of centralized overreach in eroding agency and vitality.

Counterarguments to Pessimistic Views

Some interpreters argue that "The Refusal" does not depict an unassailable bureaucratic but rather a system sustained by habitual compliance, which introduces inherent vulnerabilities. The hunter's defiance—refusing to surrender his rifle to the frontier captain—succeeds without , as the official, distant from the capital's core power, lacks the means or will to override local . This episode illustrates that authority's reach depends on voluntary submission; absent it, enforcement falters, suggesting opportunities for targeted opt-outs rather than total resignation. The narrative's ironic tone, evident in the townsfolk's rote petitions met with formulaic denials, functions not to induce despair but to provoke critical examination of power's performative rituals. By presenting the capital's edicts as distant impositions that locals navigate through selective adherence, Kafka highlights as an active response, akin to a proto-individualist challenge to overreach. Pessimistic readings, often aligned with collectivist frameworks emphasizing inescapable class or state domination, undervalue this ambiguity, projecting fatalism onto a text that leaves room for adaptive agency. Empirical parallels in historical non-compliance—such as tax revolts or draft refusals eroding distant regimes—reinforce the story's implication of systemic fragility over monolithic control. Optimistic exegeses further contend that the story's open-ended structure prioritizes potential rebellion through understated means, countering despair by affirming individual efficacy in peripheral zones. The narrator's detached reflection on the hunter's unpunished stand invites readers to envision scaled refusals disrupting the equilibrium, rather than endorsing passive endurance. Such views, though minority amid Kafka's reputation for bleakness, align with the text's refusal to resolve into outright defeat, underscoring causal leverage in voluntary disengagement.

Reception and Legacy

Early Critical Responses

Max Brod, Kafka's literary executor, included "The Refusal" ("Die Abweisung") in the 1931 posthumous collection Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer, framing Kafka's shorter prose as parables exposing the absurdities of authoritarian structures and bureaucratic obedience, themes he emphasized in his editorial afterword to highlight Kafka's prescience against modern despotism. This promotion positioned the story's depiction of a provincial town's ritualistic deference to a remote, unassailable leader as a critique of unthinking compliance, though Brod noted the work's fragmentary nature stemmed from Kafka's unfinished manuscripts. Contemporary European critics offered mixed assessments, often grouping "The Refusal" with Kafka's "minor works" for its ironic, understated style that conveyed power's opacity through everyday absurdity rather than overt drama. , in his review of the collection, praised the ironic detachment in pieces like this for capturing the alienation of modern life under invisible hierarchies, yet critiqued the brevity as limiting deeper psychological exploration compared to Kafka's novels. , in a radio on the volume, interpreted such stories as messianic fragments revealing a trapped in without redemption, appreciating the ironic narration for its refusal to resolve bureaucratic enigmas but dismissing them as anecdotal sketches lacking the novels' mythic scope. Publication faced immediate suppression with the Nazi regime's 1933 book burnings, which targeted Kafka's Jewish-authored works including the 1931 collection, curtailing popular dissemination in and occupied territories while limiting broader attention to and circles. Despite this, academic interest persisted modestly through the and in non-Nazi contexts, where scholars valued the story's endurance as a concise exemplar of Kafka's ironic of centralized power, though it received less focus than major novels and was occasionally sidelined as a peripheral anecdote amid postwar rediscoveries of Kafka's oeuvre.

Modern Scholarly Perspectives

In the early , post-Cold War scholarship has reframed "The Refusal" as a of bureaucratic applicable to welfare states and liberal democracies, where administrative routines foster acquiescence akin to the story's provincial compliance. Douglas Litowitz's 2002 examination highlights how the narrator and townspeople avoid probing the regime's foundations, lest it jeopardize their fragile stability, a pattern echoing modern citizens' deference to regulatory opacity for perceived security. This reading counters narrower totalitarian analogies by emphasizing bureaucracy's universal erosion of agency, irrespective of ideological veneer. Scholars have drawn parallels between the tale's elusive "capital"—a distant, unassailable —and globalization's remote economic and political nodes, which similarly obscure causal chains of power while demanding local . Analyses in apply Kafka's motifs to contemporary breakdowns, where actors in multinational structures confront myth-like rules that defy rational navigation, rendering refusal a futile against systemic . Such interpretations, grounded in the text's depiction of hierarchical remoteness, underscore globalization's amplification of Kafkaesque disempowerment without resorting to unsubstantiated victimhood tropes. Critiques of ideologically inflected appropriations favor realist textual exegeses, attributing compliance to innate human —prioritizing amid —over projections of . Doran Cohn's 2011 study positions the story within anarchist , interpreting the administrator's pompous yet hollow authority as a realistic unmasking of bureaucratic , where refusal manifests as in representational intermediaries rather than heroic defiance. This approach challenges left-leaning narratives that overemphasize external , instead highlighting the protagonist's internalized resignation as a causal driver of perpetuation, evidenced by the unperturbed yearly rituals. Psychoanalytic and feminist lenses, while noting motifs of withheld access and paternalistic control, yield to evidence-based readings that trace power's obscure genesis directly to the narrative's withheld explanations, avoiding interpretive overreach.

Influence on Literature and Thought

Kafka's "The Refusal" has contributed to anarchist interpretations of , where its depiction of bureaucratic remoteness and individual resistance exemplifies strategies of representation aligned with anti-authoritarian critique. Scholar Jesse S. Cohn, in a 2011 analysis, connects the story's narrative techniques—particularly the portrayal of everyday defiance against distant imperial control—to Kafka's broader engagement with , framing it as a form of "anarchist modernism" that challenges statist hierarchies without resorting to overt . This reading positions the narrator's quiet refusal of a tax-collector role as a model for non-compliant agency within oppressive systems. In political philosophy, the story informs examinations of consent, autonomy, and authority. A 1985 Harvard Law Review article on moral limits of consent cites "The Refusal" to explore denial of bureaucratic impositions as an assertion of personal sovereignty, contrasting voluntary submission with irreducible refusal amid hierarchical power structures. Similarly, libertarian socialist discourse draws on the tale's theme of non-submission, interpreting the protagonist's stance as emblematic of resisting dehumanizing obedience to abstract authority, akin to refusing to "become a dog" in the face of coercion. Literary influence remains niche, with no major adaptations or direct derivations documented, but the story endures in educational anthologies and curricula for illustrating dynamics of power, compliance, and refusal. For instance, a 2019 Texas Education Agency evaluation of the McGraw-Hill StudySync program highlights its use in high school English units to prompt student connections between the narrative's small-town subjugation and broader questions of resistance against centralized control. syllabi also incorporate it alongside Kafka's other works to probe intersections of legal and narrative form. These applications underscore its role in fostering critical thought on anti-statist themes, though broader dystopian fiction echoes Kafka's bureaucratic motifs more generally than this specific .

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